Latest / Devil Town / The Tape | Chapter 13

Transcript

The Tape | Chapter 13 · Devil Town

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I cut a lot of hair when I was in
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: high school. I mean I cut enough hair that I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: purchased two motorcycles with my hair cutting money.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: This is John Dodd. John grew up in Gilmer, Texas,
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: and he's not lying when he says he cut a
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: lot of hair back when he was in high school.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I used to cut a lot of the boy's hair
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and even some of the girls hair. I used to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: charge three dollars a haircut.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: On the night that Kelly Wilson vanished from Gilmer, Texas,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: guess what John was doing. Yeah, he was cutting hair.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Two of John's friends came by and their names were
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Chris Denton and Marvin Pritchett.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It was dark by then, of course, it was January
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the fifth, and so you know, it was getting dark,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: probably about five o'clock in East Texas, and Marvin and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Chris had come over.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Chris, you probably remember, Chris Denton was one of the
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: first suspects in Kelly's case. Marvin is another name we
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: talked about earlier in the podcast, and I'll tell you
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: more about him in a little bit now.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you one hundred percent if I cut
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Chris's hair that night, or Marvin's hair. But I know
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: for a fact they were at the house. They were
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: waiting for me because we were gonna go to Gilmer
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and just grab some chicken or something like that. I
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: am guessing that it's gonna be sometime around seven, eight
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: o'clock or so. I got finished cutting hair and we
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: all went out and we got into Marvin's truck and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Marvin was sitting in the driver's seat, Chris was in
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the middle, and I was in the passenger seat. And
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: before we pulled out of the driveway, Yeah, I heard
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a voice tell my mind and said get out of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the car. And I told him. I said, hey, man,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you know what, I don't think I'm going tonight. And
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Marvin and Chris looked at me and they said why not, John,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And I said, you know, I got homework tod And
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: they looked at me, and I looked at them and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: we all laughed. And the reason why that was funny
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: is because Wes, I never did homework. Like my whole
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: high schoo career, I'd never did homework, and so they
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: knew that I wasn't going to go do homework. But
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I reaffirmed and I just said, look, yeah, I'm getting out.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: So John was a senior the same year as Kelly
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Day Wilson, and on the night she disappeared January fifth,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, he was supposed to be in that truck.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: He got out instead. And that decision to climb out
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: over homework he had no intention of doing, is the
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: only reason John Dodd wasn't writing around Gilmert with his
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: two friends on the last night. Anybody can account for
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Kelly because of that feeling he had. John escaped the
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: allegations that would hound his friends, especially Chris, for years.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: But John was about to get drawn into the case anyway,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: and you might be surprised to learn how that happened.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Now here's where I'm telling you independent from any other
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: person on this planet, because I witnessed it with my
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: own eyes.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: From Free Range Productions in association with Imperative Entertainment. I'm
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: West Ferguson, and this is Deviltown, chapter thirteen, the tape.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: All right, let me back up and tell you more
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: about John Dodd. Most of the people who have reached
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: out to me about Kelly are you know, regular folks.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: They've got a rumor, or a memory or a theory
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: they heard from a cousin, and I take it all seriously,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: but I also take it all with a grain of salt,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: because you know, that's the job. John is a little
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: different because John does this for a living. He's a
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: federal police chief, and he spent his entire career working
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: major crimes, homicides, all the serious stuff.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Just f y. I'm a child friendsic interviewer. I've been
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: doing it since two thousand and nine. And listen, I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: am an evidence based person.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I have to be.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have the luxury of just believing people because
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: they kail me something right. My job requires us to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: provide evidence. And one of the reasons why in the
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: past I haven't ever got involved is because some of
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the cases that I've worked in my career. I'm a
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: federal investigator, and I mean, I've spent my career doing
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: So this is kind of John's whole thing. He's a
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: guy whose entire career is built on not getting carried away,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: on not deciding what happened first, and then going out
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: looking for proof. He'll actually tell you more than once
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: that he's careful about what he'll swear to and what
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: he won't. And that's part of why for thirty years,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: John mostly stayed out of this. He had a demanding job,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: a life out west, and a healthy suspicion of the
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: kind of storytelling that had already turned Kelly's case into
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: an absolute circus. But John is not a stranger to
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: this story and close his father is John Melvin Dodd.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: If you've been with me for a while, you know Melvin.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: He's one of the founders of the Justice for Kelly
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Wilson Committee, the group of folks in Gilmert who never
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: stopped pushing, never stopped believing there was more to this
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: than the official version. I interviewed Melvin at least once,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: maybe a couple of times.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: You're gonna write a book about this or what?
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: No, sir, I'm making a podcast series.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, I'm gonna have to after a phone here,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: I take me long? Hello, What.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Didn't So?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: John is extremely familiar with all of this, and even
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: more than that, he grew up with the people who
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: ended up at the center of it. He told me
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: he had three best friends in high school, and one
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: of them was Christentton. Now, Christen has often been described
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: as Kelly's boyfriend. The people that know them say that's
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: not true. They just had, like, you know, a hookup basically.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: But for thirty years, Christenton was law enforcement's favorite suspect
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: in her disappearance. Chris died back in two thousand and four,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: and we spent a good chunk of an earlier episode
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: or two on him, and just so we're clear, no
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: one ever proved that he actually had anything to do
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: with her disappearance. But we do know that Chris was
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: in that truck that night cruising around Gilmer when Kelly disappeared,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: and so was Marvin Pritchett, another kid from that same circle.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: These guys were John's friends, which brings me back to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: his Grandma's driveway because when John tells that story about
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the voice saying get out of the car, my first instinct, honestly,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: is probably the same as yours. It's a good story,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: but it's just a feeling a hunch. How much can
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: you really hang on that? And then John told me
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: why he listened to that voice. In nineteen eighty eight,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: John and Chris's older brother, Allan were in a horrible
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: car wreck.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Alan and I had just dropped his girlfriend off in
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Longview at her house, and we were driving back in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: his little low nineteen eighty something Ford Escort, little two door,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and I remember I was in the back seat after
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: because we were wasted, and I'm talking about I'm laying
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: across the back seat and so I'm curled up lane
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: there and then her boye tell me, he said, get up,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: get the front seat. And I woke up and I
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: saw Alan. He was on the front porch, kissing the land.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And I crawled over and got in the passenger seat,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and I laid my chair all the way back and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I went right back to sleep. And we're driving from
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Longview back to Gimberg. And there was two ways to
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: get to my house. One way you could turn left
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and you could go by the old Dean Lake and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: go to my house that way. The other way was
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you had to go in through town. Well, when we
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: pulled up, I woke up. The reason why I'm telling
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you this, though, West, is because you remember certain things.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: And this is why I remember this very vividly, that
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: little voice. This is probably the first time that I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: recall every hearing a voice to somebody or something talking
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: to me into my mind. And we pulled up to
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: two seventy one from three hundred, and a voice tells me.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It says, turn left, and I said, hey, Alan, wyon't
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: we turn left? And you look at me, You're like,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: what're for? And I was like, uh, never mind, now
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: let's just go, you know whichever. And I fell back
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to sleep and we got hit by another car going
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: sixty miles an hour, and I got ejected from the vehicle. Okay,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I would wear in my seat belt and I broke
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: my left side of my face. I had reconstructed surgery
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: on my face. I got screwed up and glass all
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: over my body, my head, my back, you know. I mean,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: it screwed me up pretty good. And so I remember
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I told them. I said, man, I heard a voice
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: tell me to get up, get in the front seat,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and then to turn left instead of turning right. And
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't listen to it. I said, I listened to it,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: but I didn't convince Allan, you know. And I said,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'll never do that again. If I ever hear that
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: voice in my head telling me to do something, I'm
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: gonna do it. I'm gonna listen. Well here it was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: years later, this time, I'm a senior anywhere the fifth,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I go hop in the car. All we're doing is
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: we're going to town. We're going to JRS at that
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: gas station. You know. I was just probably gonna go
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: eat some chicken and eat some potatoes, you know. And
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the next thing, you know, that same voice came to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: me and said get out, and I was like, oh snap,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: I remember that. Now.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not here to tell you what that voice was.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: John's a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Latter day Saints, and to him, this is a spiritual thing.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So you could believe that or not believe it. That's
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: totally up to you. What I can tell you is
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: that it's not something John made up for a podcast.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: His dad told me a version of this the same
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: story several years ago before John and I had ever spoken.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Is back in episode ten.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: And John said he just got a strong impression don't go.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: So you told him, James of mine, I'm not going.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: So they stopped me got up and he's the only
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: reason my son, John was not a Ben Gilmer with BAM.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Then I think Kelly Wilson disappeared, So that's John.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: But none of that, the voice, the driveway, the wreck,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: none of that is why John finally picked up the
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: phone and called me after thirty years. He called me
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: because of something, he says that he saw with his
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: own eyes, something on a piece of evidence that's been
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: sitting at the center of this case since the very beginning.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: After the break, John gets his hands on the bank
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: video and he takes it somewhere. No other investigator ever.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Did as plain as day as I'm looking at the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: sun right now. In Yeah, James Brown was the one
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: who was in that vein.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: All right, So to understand what John says he saw.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: I just want to quickly remind you about the bank
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: video because we talked about it all the way back
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: in episode two. So here's the short version. The night
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: that Kelly disappeared, part of her job at that video
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: store was to take the day's cash to the bank
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: just a couple blocks away and drop it in the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: night deposit box. And there was a surveillance camera at
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the bank and it captured a few vehicles coming through
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: around the time that Kelly would have made the drop.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: The problem was that back in nineteen ninety two, that
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: footage was well, it was terrible, grainy, dark, low quality.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Sergeant James Brown, the Gilmour police officer who ran the
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: search for Kelly, told the media that the video showed
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Kelly make that deposit, even though from everything we've been
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: able to tell, the camera didn't really show that clearly
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: at all. And here's a refresher on James yorke Brown.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Two years after a Kelly vanished, Brown himself got arrested
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: and was charged as part of that alleged satanic cult,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: along with the Kerr family and several others. And then
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the Texas Attorney General's Office came in. They took the
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: case apart, found no real evidence behind any of those charges,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: and dropped every charge. Brown has always maintained he had
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with Kelly's disappearance and he was never
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: convicted of anything. As far as the law is concerned,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: and as far as I'm concerned, James yorke Brown is
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: an innocent man. And here's James himself from an interview
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: we played earlier in the season where he's talking about
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: those first days searching for Kelly. This is back from
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: episode two.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of interviews that were done with the
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: last people that had contact, and from there you start
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: nearing your focus and of course I was a loan
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: in the investigation.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: For a long time in this story, that's who James
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Brown was the officer running the case. So I want
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: to be crystal clear before I tell you this next part,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: because this next part is John Dodd looking at that
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: same grainy video and telling me he sees that same
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: man somewhere he was never supposed to be. And how
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: did John, this high school kid at the time, or
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: maybe fresh out of high school, end up with this
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: bank tape at all? He says, it came through the
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: back door. Kelly's father had hired a private investigator down
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: in Louisiana, and that PI somehow got hold of a
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: copy of the surveillance video, and he's the one who
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: handed his material over to the Justice for Kelly Folks,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: and a copy of the bank video made its way
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: to John.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I take that copy over to my cousin, Jeff Dodds.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Jeff had gotten his degree at brig Up Young University,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and it has something to do with graphic design, and
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: he had a brand new, state of the art computer.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: We took and I say we, myself, Sam Robinson Denny
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Pilcher went over at Jeff's house with this video We
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: had Jeff analyze this on this computer and he blew
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it up. He was able to remove some of the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: static and stuff off of this and he blew up
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: this video and the still shots taken from the surveillance video.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: So picture this. It's the mid nineties. Four young guys
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: crowded around a computer in somebody's house watching a blurry
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: frame of video get bigger and clearer line by line,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: and John says, what came into focus is the thing
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: he's been carrying around for thirty years.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Now here's where I'm telling you that I know of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: myself independent from any other person on this planet, independent
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: from Melvin Dodd, independent of any other person, because I
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: witnessed it with my own eyes. We blew those videos up,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: those steal shots up, those frames up, and as plain
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: as day as I'm looking at the sun right now
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: in the sky. James Brown was the one who was
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in that van. There was another person who was sitting
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: in the passenger seat who I could not identify because
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you couldn't see his face. But Geneva Kerr was in
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the back.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Geneva Kerr, the woman the state once accused of being
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: at the head of that satanic cult, the one who
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: charges like Brown's got dropped for lack of evidence. John
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: says he saw her and James York Brown in a
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: van at the bank the night Kelly disappeared, not making
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a deposit like Kelly was supposed to do. John says
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: the van pulled up first around eight point fifteen, and
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: the driver leaned out and dropped an envelope in the
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: night deposit. Now here's something else important. John's own father, Melvin,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: has told this video story publicly for years, but when
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: John describes it, he actually corrects his dad on the details.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I had a talk with my dad. I said, Dad,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: James never got out of the car. Well, he most
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: certainly did, said Dad, James never got out of that vehicle.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: He leaned out, That's why we could see him. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: he never got out. And I said, Dad, he wasn't
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: wearing the police unit for him either.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: He was wearing a jacket.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Now Dad was inaccurate when he said that you could
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: see her through the window. Through the glass, No, James
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Brown had the window of that dark colored van rode down,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: he leaned out. Geneva was sitting directly behind him in
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the back seat, and she leaned up and stuck her
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: face in between the seat and the door jam, and
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: she is looking directly at whatever James is doing, but
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: her face is as plain as day in the camera.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Melvin has been telling this story one way. But John,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the trained investigator, the guy who was actually in the
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: room when they enhanced the footage, is gently telling his
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: own father he got the details a little wrong. Brown
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: leaned out, He didn't get out. A jacket, not a uniform.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Geneva's face at the doorframe, not against the.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Glass plane as day. I saw this, Jeff Dodd saw it,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Denny saw it, Sam saw it.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Now I have to be honest with you about what
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: this is and what this isn't. This is just John's account,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: his memory, and his read on a piece of grainy
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: video from thirty years ago. No investigator, no prosecutor, no
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: jury has ever confirmed what John says he saw. James
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Brown was cleared, Geneva Kerr was cleared. And I'm not
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: gonna sit here and tell you that John is right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: But I also can't quite let go of the question
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: John keeps coming back to, because whatever you make of
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the voice in the driveway, John is not some guy
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: with a wild theory he's a professional, and he has
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: one question that really bugs me.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Here's what's so disturbing to me. How come a twenty
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: four twenty five year old, you know, if I was
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: that age but somewhere between twenty three and twenty five
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: years of age. How come I can take a video
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and go make an absolute, definitive identification on who the
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: driver was? And how come that was never done by
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the investigative parties. How Come that's never been done by
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the FBI.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: How Come nobody with a badge and a budget ever
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: did what four kids did around a computer one afternoon.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I don't have a great answer for that, and John
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: doesn't either. But he'll be the first to tell you
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: that his answer, even if he's one hundred percent right
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: about what he saw, doesn't actually prove anything on his own.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: After the break, the catch the one thing John's entire
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: theory depends on, and it leads me to a name
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I had never heard before.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It's not John Dodd telling you what I saw, because Wes,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you haven't seen it. You're not convinced, right.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So here's where John, to his credit, turns this whole
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: thing on himself, because he knows what I was thinking
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: he knows that a guy saying I saw James York
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Brown on a tape thirty years ago is not the
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: same as proof. Far from it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, I'm telling you, as an experienced investigator,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that if you were ever to get your hands and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: to solve anything, your key is the video. It's not
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: John Dodd telling you what I saw because Wes, you
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: haven't seen it. You're not convinced. Right. I can get
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: up in front of a damn jury all day long
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and rant and rave and tell you and cry and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: everything else and say, oh my god, it was James,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you know. But until the jury sees that video to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: confirm that that individual is in fact without I mean
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: beyond a reasonable doubt, James, it's irrelevant.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I really respect that a lot of people who come
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: to me with a theory want me to just believe them.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: John wants me to go check, and there's one particular
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: thing he wants me to check, because it's the piece
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: his whole theory rests on. Remember, the official story was
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: that the car at the bank was Kelly's making that deposit.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: John says, no one of those vehicles that came through
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: at eight thirty one PM. Was a white Ford Mustang
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: and it didn't go to the deposit box. It pulled
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: up to the ATM, and John says he knows exactly
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: whose mustang that was. It belonged to a classmate of
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: his and Kelly's, a girl named Stacy.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: James Brown insisted in his case that that was Kelly
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Wilson who drove her Dodge through there and made the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: not deposit. But that's inaccurate. That was Stacy in her
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: white Ford Mustang and her boyfriend, and she testified to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that to the grand jury. That wasn't Kelly, that that
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was her.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, Now hang on, because this is a big deal.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: John's whole case comes down to this. If the car
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: at the bank wasn't Kelly, then the official timeline falls
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: apart and the door opens to everything else John is saying.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: And it's proof that it wasn't Kelly, would be Stacy.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: John says. Stacy stood up in front of a grand
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: jury and swore it was her at the bank, not Kelly.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: He says he saw her there.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I got called in front of the grand jury. Okay,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing Stacy there at the grand jury.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: John says that even years later, He and another Justice
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: for Kelly member named Glenn Leech tracked down Stacy in
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Houston and interviewed her, and she said the same thing again.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: That is a very specific, very checkable claim. And here's
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: a surprising part. Across everybody I talked to, I had
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: never once heard the named Stacy. John could not believe that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that this is the first time you've
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: ever heard the name of Stacy. So this is insane
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: So I did what John asked. I went and found her. Actually,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Jennifer Dean, a friend of Kelly's that you've heard from
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: many times throughout the show, helped put us in touch.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And I want to be straight with you, Stacey was
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: a little nervous about being on the show at all.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: She's got a career, she's got a community, and she
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: asked me to be careful. So you're going to hear
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: a short piece of our conversation, but she asked us
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: to not include her last name. Okay. So I got
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Stacy on the phone, and pretty early on I asked
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: her the thing that John's whole theory hangs on. Did
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: she testify to the grand jury that the car at
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: the bank was hers.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: Well, I didn't testify before a grand jury for anyone.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure where that information came from. Jennifer had
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: said that to me, so.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I did not.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So the whole theory of John's, the fact that's supposed
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: to prove the car wasn't Kelly's, is that Stacy testified
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: to the grand jury, and now Stacy says it never happened.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: She does say that an investigator, maybe a private investigator,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: came and interviewed her about the case in like nineteen
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: ninety six or so.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: And just asked me questions that kind of the same thing.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Now, I didn't really.
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: Have much to add other than I drove through the
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: bank that night, So I don't know if both of
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: us drove through.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I know I drove through.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Now, she didn't contradict everything some of what John said.
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: She did confirm, Well, I drove a white Mustang GT.
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: I went to the ATM machine to get money. I
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: wouldn't have been making a deposit.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: So that part lines up perfectly. She did drive a
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: white Mustang, and she was at the bank that night
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: she hit the ATM. She wasn't making a deposit. So
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: john'stop pulling this out of thin air. There really was
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a girl in a light colored car at the bank
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that night. That much is real. The sworn grand jury
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: testimony is the one thing that Stacy says never happened.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: And here's what gets me. I don't think either of
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: them is lying. I really don't. John's not a liar,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: he's careful, he's a credible guy, and he clearly believes
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: that Stacy testified to the grand jury, and Stacy has
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: no reason to deny that. She's just telling me what
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: she remembers. That's kind of the whole thing about this case, right,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: every time you think you finally got something solid to
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: stand on, it just sort of slips out from under you.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: But John left me with one more thing, because for
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: all his talk about how it doesn't matter what he saw,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: there is a way to settle at least part of
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: this the actual tape, not John's memory of it, but
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: the tape itself, the video. So I went looking for it,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: and the first place I tried was an old Dateline
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: episode about Kelly's case. John told me he'd heard that
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: the producer who made that episode way back in two
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: thousand and two had looked at the bank video and
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: come away seeing exactly what he saw. So I tracked
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: her down. Her name is Marcia Bartel, and when she
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: replied to my email, she told me the opposite. She
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: said that she did not see James Brown in that
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: video and she did not have a copy of it.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: If I wanted the tape, I'd have to take that
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: up with Dateline. Fat chance, right, So, just to reiterate,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: nobody official ever made the same identification that John did.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Not the gilm or police Nott, the FBI, not the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Attorney General's office, and the one person outside this case
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: that I knew of who actually studied that video very closely,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the producer who made the Dateline episode, told me she
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: didn't see James Brown in it either. So back when
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Doubletown was coming out the first time around, I had
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: only seen a few short clips from the Bank video,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: plus some screenshots, and to me, the guy in the
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: van doesn't really look like James Brown, not that it's
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: really easy to tell one way or the other. But
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: then after we finished making our first round of episodes,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Kelly's dad, Robbie, actually found the Bank surveillance footage in
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: a box of old videotapes. I think he said they
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: were out in his garage. He sent the box to
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: me and I had all the videos digitized and well,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to be perfectly honest, when I hit play, I still
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. We'll
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: share the video in our newsletter unforgottenpod dot com so
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: you can see for yourself. Maybe it'll make more sense
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: to you.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: She got off four at eight o'clock.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: This is Melvin again, John Stadd eight thirty.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Two something About that time a van pulled in there
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: and a man got out and made a deposits and
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: this man, I guarantee you was James Brown in a
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: Gilmer police uniform. Well, there was an old woman sitting
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: right behind James Brown and she put her face up
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: to the clear glass of the wind and it was
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Jenny Kerr.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: So that's it for this episode. And next time on
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Deviltown we are going to go in a totally different direction.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: We're going to unpack a weird detail about the slash
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: tire that has always stuck with me and what it
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: tells us about Kelly and her case. Deviltown is a
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: free range production in association with Imperative Entertainment. The show
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: was created by me Wes Ferguson and edited by Aslan Gatis.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Music by Robert Ellis. For updates on this case and others,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: joined our free newsletter at Unforgotten pod dot com. As always,
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: thank you for listening.